There's no reason to give up printing just because you hit
the road. CRN Test Center has tested the Brother MPrint
microprinter, the Canon i70 Color Bubble Jet Printer and the HP
DeskJet 450e-all small enough to travel with you.

The Canon and HP are general-purpose printers capable of
black-and-white, color and photo printing on any size or type of
paper. In the interest of portability, the Brother lets you print
only in black and white and only on A7 paper.

All include wireless ports for printing from Pocket PCs or
Palm-based PDAs and USB ports for printing from notebooks or PCs.
Canon and HP also print directly from printing-enabled devices like
digital cameras without a PC or PDA. The DeskJet even prints via
Bluetooth, though setup is tricky.

The Canon i70 combines a small size (12.4 by 6.9 by 2.0 inches)
with a light weight (4 pounds). It prints in black and white at 600
x 600 dpi and in color at 4,800 x 1,200 dpi. The Canon i70 is also
affordable: It costs $250 (all prices street) without the
rechargeable battery, which sells for $90 and provides power for up
to 450 printed pages.

The HP DeskJet 450 cbi is slightly larger (13.3 by 3.2 by 6.5
inches), heavier (4.6 pounds) and more expensive ($349) than the
i70. Its rechargeable battery prints only 350 pages. Color
resolution is the same as the i70, but the DeskJet prints
black-text documents at 1,200 x 1,200 dpi. We found that the i70
printed sharper colors and had better quality for photos.

The i70 also has a speed advantage. Black-and-white text
documents print at 6 pages per minute (ppm); a digital photo on
8.5-by-11 photographic paper took one minute, 27 seconds. The
DeskJet prints black-and-white documents at 3.5 ppm; it took three
minutes and 43 seconds to print a color photo.

The $299 Brother MPrint, on the other hand, enables true
in-the-field printing. It's light (less than 10 ounces) and
tiny (4.0 by 6.4 by 0.7 inches). The unit prints at 4 ppm and, in
addition to its A7-size ThermaPlus M paper, will print
self-adhesive labels and carbon-copy paper. The MPrint prints at
300 dpi and is powered by a rechargeable battery capable of up to
100 pages. While the i70 and 450 cbi are both available at retail,
the MPrint is only available through IT consultants or solution
providers.

If you need a high-quality, inexpensive printer for use on the
road or even at work, the Canon i70 is your best choice. For a
truly tiny printer that still produces quality printouts, consider
the Brother MPrint.

Michael Gros is affiliated with the CRN Test Center, the
technology testing facility for CRN, a weekly newspaper
aimed at IT consultants and solution providers.